I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for a priceless website. I love
this. I'm a recent college grad working in public relations, but my graduation did not satisfy my quench for learning.
As a former English
major, I have a profound love of the language, so this site is right up my
alley.

Oh, and I found your site by conducting a search on Google.
I was looking
for the etymology of "boilerplate" and I was delivered to your site.
Now, I
look like a genius in the eyes of one of my former professors for getting
her the answer, so nice going.

Keep up the good work!

We are pleased that you found what you were
looking for at this site. We hope you'll be back!

As you know, the Japanese language contains no "el" sound.
In "Purple", the Japanese secret code which American intelligence cracked in 1940, messages
were entered on standard electric typewriters with the English alphabet. The word they used for the location of the Pearl Harbor naval base was
"Honoruru."

Indeed!

From Mike Steede:

I liked the Engrish version of
"fright operations department". Working as
an inbound coordinator for the Hyundai Merchant Marine ships calling Vancouver, I found it quite hilarious that the terminology for a "Late
Diversion" (European/N. American term) of inland cargo destination or to a
different discharge port 3 days or less prior to discharge is routinely referred to in the Far East as a "Freight Devastation"
!

At first I thought this was a one-off. But it was repeated every time and
by different ops people in different ports! Go figure....

Another one was a local freight forwarder who would call me up and demand to
know where the "packages" was. No kidding, it was about 3 years of this
happening just about every 4-6 weeks when it finally twigged as I was driving home one night that she wasn't asking about her
"packages" or
containers. She wanted to know when the NYK vessel the California Pegasus
was due in... not "packages" - the "Pegasus"!

To the subject of Lucifer:
The verse from Isaiah 14:12 in Hebrew refers to Heilel Ben Shakhar (the
kh is pronounced like in "khan"). Ben Shakhar means literally
"son of dawn". Heilel is probably derived from the verb
HLL which means "to praise". A
common Hebrew noun halel means "praise". According to the much esteemed dictionary of Hebrew by Even-Shoshan, the
term I is found only in this single verse, and the phrase Heilel Ben
Shakhar is usually interpreted as
reference to Venus, the morning star. So, as you see, the Hebrew original does not mention
"light" or "sound" at
all.

Interestingly enough, the morning star in Hebrew has another, more widespread name, which can be literally
translated as "the dawn gazelle" (Ayelet HaShakhar). This lovely name appears in many poems and writings
(including contemporary) and also is the name of a kibbutz (a settlement) in the north of Israel.

Thanks for your erudite
explanation, Ika.

Could it be that Heilel Ben Shakhar
was an oblique reference to the Babylonian goddess known variously as
Innanna, Ishtar, Astarte and Ashtaroth who was associated with the
"morning star"?

Reading your piece on git
(TOWFI 111) prompts me to write once more. In my mis-spent youth (in the English Midlands), the word was always pronounced
"get". It was Alf Garnett (Johnny Speight's wonderful/awful bigoted opinionated cockney, played by Warren Mitchell, and reincarnated in the US
as Archie Bunker) who popularised the "git" pronunciation with his catch-phrase "randy Scouse git!" in the sixties.

In passing, the randy Scouse git was Alf's son-in-law, played by actor
Anthony Booth, who is the father of Cherie, wife of our Prime Minister Tony
Blair. Mr. Blair, of course, is neither a Scouse (Liverpudlian) nor a git.
I can't possibly comment on any other attributes he may or may not possess,
but as a recent father, I'll leave readers to draw their own conclusion!

Yes, you are probably correct in suggesting
that the UK television program Till Death Do Us Part (on which the
US's All in the Family was based) had some influence on the
pronunciation of get as git. However, that
pronunciation was not unknown before the television program, so it is
difficult to measure its influence.

I recently became aware of your website and I noticed the
discussion of gender v. sex in issue 31. Have you updated your discussion since then? Many social scientists use sex to refer to
differences between men and women which are biological in origin and gender to refer to differences which are culturally constructed.
This is actually quite a useful distinction to make. Division of labor, conventions of dress or differences in legal rights are not
differences determined by physical facts of maleness or femaleness and jobs, dress and rights for women and men differ from culture to
culture. I suspect that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was aware of this growing body of theoretical literature. The notion that she avoided
a certain word due to a lithp [sic] sounds an awful lot like an "urban legend." Has anyone asked her?

Sure, it's a useful distinction to make but that's not the issue. An HR
department which issues a form asking employees to enter their "gender" is
not asking for a culturally constructed difference. They mean plain old biological
"sex" and should say so. Their use of "gender" when they mean "sex" is simply
euphemism.

Ms. Ginsburg is an educated woman and may well have come into contact with
the usage you suggest. This should not have influenced her choice of vocabulary, though.
After
all, she used to represent women who were being harassed because they were
biologically female. As far as I know, she never represented a female impersonator
who had been harassed for a "culturally constructed difference".

As
for the lisp, we heard this explanation on NPR when Ms. Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme
Court. One
of her former colleagues was being interviewed.

I came across your etymological site while scanning Yahoo for the origin of
panorama. On it, Jill Dybka claims that Bill Bryson (whose books I adore)
identifies Norman Bel Geddes (whose architecture I equally adore!) as the
initiator in 1939 of the -rama craze (Futurama etc).
However, I have just
read Balzac's Father (PÍre) Goriot, written more than 100 years earlier,
in 1834. In pages 74 and 75 of the Penguin Classics edition of the book,
Balzac, that acute observer of Parisian whims and foibles really goes to
town on the (then) topical, "frivolous, meaningless and silly" habit which
swept through Paris at that time, and which appeared to have started with
the exciting experience of the Diorama. He quotes the use of healthorama,
and also a debate which his boarding house guests had about whether extreme
cold should be referred to as chillyrama or chillyorama.
A great sight of
a tureen of soup was referred to as a souparama. I should emphasize that
this is in the English translation - no doubt the French original is similarly frivolous.
In France, there is now an expansive chain of furniture
shops called Conforama and a DIY chain called Castorama - and so the
frivolity of -rama continues......

Very interesting. What we
really must do is see the original French version of Balzac's work to
determine what words he was using (we were unable to find a French version
before publication time). Penguin Classics' translations are known for
not being very accurate (Mike worked for Penguin as a younger lad).
However, if the French words are similar to their English counterparts, we
still cannot give credit to Balzac for starting the -rama craze in English,
only French.

While your history of the
word scab is good, it only brings us to a certain point in history. It is there where you drop the ball.
SCAB is an acronym for "Still Collecting All Benefits". It is only a
coincidence that it also means "despicable person."

For some, the word Scab is perceived as offensive, but it may have
actually started as an acronym. Reportedly, during the early part of this
century, managements would keep a list of workers who crossed the picket
lines. The title of the list was, "Still Collecting All Benefits."
Regardless of its genesis, its now a part of the English language and in the
dictionary. The common acceptance of the word to describe strike-breakers in
the modern vernacular was demonstrated in management's very own American Way
magazine crossword puzzle of March, 1995, in which the clue for "77 down"
was, "Striker's anathema." The answer was, of course... Scab.

Just thought you would like to know since it appears you stopped your
research at one source.

The word scab used to refer to strike-breakers is quite
a bit older
than "the early part of this century", the period given by the article you
cite. The article also claims that "Still Collecting All Benefits" was
a term used by management. There are several reasons why this does
not make sense to us:

We cannot find a single
example of, or reference to, benefits meaning
"wages", only constructions such as sickness benefit
and maternity benefit.

Scab
is a term of condemnation used only by
strikers or their sympathizers, hence the "Striker's anathema"
of your crossword. Scab is common parlance so, of course,
managers know the word.

Since the 16th
century, scab has been a term of abuse for a filthy, despicable
person. Do you
really expect us to believe that a manager might say, "The
strikers might have had their way if it were not for those splendid
scabs."?

Very, very few English words come from
acronyms. How often must
we repeat this? (We think we know, now, how some elementary and high
school teachers feel, not to mention our parents.)

We
have found several examples of scab used to mean
"strike breaker" from as far back as the 18th century. How
about these:

To the Public.
Whereas the Master Cordwainers have gloried, that there has been a
Demur amongst the Menís and Womenís Men;Ė we have the
Pleasure to inform them, that Matters are amicably settled... The
Conflict would not been [sic] so sharp had not there been
so many dirty Scabs; no Doubt but timely Notice will be taken of
them.

- Bonner
& Middletonís Bristol Journal. 5 July, 1777.

and :

What is a scab? He is
to his trade what a traitor is to his country... He
first sells the journeymen, and is himself afterwards sold in his
turn by the masters, till at last he is despised by both and
deserted by all.

- from a
pamphlet of 1792 (quoted in A. Aspinall, Early English Trade Unions, 1949)

and, finally, one from the U.S. :

I concluded at that
time I would turn a scab, unknown to them, and I would
continue my work and not let them know of it.